A Boston College sports blog capturing the highs and lows of being a BC fan living 1,000 miles from Chestnut Hill.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Survive and advance!

Well an unpredictable season just got that much more unpredictable. Tough break for Crane. Now we will see what Davis can do. Needless to say, his first performance ended on a high note. The defense saved the day though.

Now we need to regroup and shift the focus to Maryland.

Wow...

I'll post my grades and second viewing thoughts Sunday.

(A game like that is why I am convinced that BC fans have a lower life expectancy.)

45 comments:

I was watching the Apple Cup with a couple of friends who are big Cougs' fans and we were flipping between games. Once that game went to OT, I was relegated to Gametracker. And every five minutes in the second half I announced the impending punt. I don't know how you're going to watch that snoozefest again.

I pooped my pants. I was at a wedding at a hotel. My buddy and I left our wives, blew off the wedding, and went to the hotel bar. During the last touchdown, we yelled so loud, a manager asked us to keep it down. F him.

Well, it's BC vs, Maryland for all the marbles in the ACC Atlantic. Did anyone actually predict that to start the season? I think BC was picked to finish 5th behind Clemson, FSU, Maryland and Wake. I wonder how many years BC will get dogged in the preseason before they actually get their due. I am fine with it, I guess, as long as it means they finish in the rankings. It always makes me cringe when the Hockey team is preseason ranked #1, because it's like a curse.

I agree with those before me who said this game was frustrating. Davis put it together for the last drive, so hopefully he can put it together earlier next week. He looked very timid out there and made big mistakes with the football. Maybe that's just rust and inexperience, but usually a good backup is chomping at the bit to get in, like Riley Skinner was when won the starting job on an injury 2 years ago, or Matt Ryan or Paul Peterson. If a backup comes in and stinks it up, it is usually not a good sign, but let's hope for at least one more good one game.

Missed today's BC blogs on ATL today--but didn't miss the game. It was painful and riveting. Here we are playing Wake and clearly the superior team but we can't score a TD on the O side,except for a couple of Vicious FG's. Then we lose the radical X factor of Crane(who once again could not turn a 3rd down inside the red zone ten, or throw a pass to score.)

It was weird to lose him for the season though--he had some good wins and made some great Wacko plays in a sea of troubles. He's going to be decent in the pros some day, I'll bet. But we got to see what life without him might be like. Davis is a kid--not that quick--not even as quick as Chris, and not that big or strong. But he was able to score in the clutch, had never seen that kind of action before and pulled off the win at the gun. But our defense is the franchise--powerful and just dominating.It's just scary to think of what kind of game plan we'll need with the Kid at the wheel at home in the biggest game of the year.

The Terps got spanked today and we'd beat them hands down with Crane next week...but the Kid has no presence or poise in the pocket and can't look-off DB's worth a damn.His last series was truly Gunnell and Robinson turning water into wine out there. No margarita's went down in this game--hell, I was so nervous watching this one I'd have swallowed a lime. Go Eagles--we always have Raji and the D Gang--and Spaz has become a guru.We can do this thing.

I was really referring to the fact that when Porter got hurt, Ryan stepped up and played well. That 'Cuse loss had very little to do with Ryan playing poorly and who can forget Ryan coming off the bench against Wake as a Sophmore to rally 2 TDs in 2 minutes to win the game. Davis had 2 quarters and luckily he found something in the "ryan" minutes and those are the minutes that count, but I will stand by this "he does not look good out there". When Riley Skinner took over at Wake 2 years ago, he looked good in the pocket and he delivered. Davis has a long way to go.

I have no idea if Davis will look good next week, but I'm pretty sure he will look a lot better, for two reasons.

I don't think he was mentally prepared to come in yesterday. Not a good thing in a backup, but I think true. He will be prepared next week.

He won the damn game. Lots of his problems were in being tentative. The confidence booster of that drive cannot be overstated. True, the Gunnell catch was 90% Gunnell (Robinson was a good pass), but that's ok, because he gets to keep throwing to Gunnell next game too.

I just read the AP recap of the game. This was Wake Forest's first home loss in an ACC game in almost 2 years!

The coaches really deserve all of the credit in the world for restoring confidence in a team that was 5-3 and getting them in position to make back to back appearances in the ACCCG.

Who would've thought that after the Clemson game that we would be in position to do this? There were people in here questioning the hiring of Jags and writing off the season. If the Hen was still here, we'd be in store for a WTF game next weekend against Maryland, a team that certainly must be deflated. But here we are with Jags, a man who I have complete faith in to get the troops ready to come out and dominate both sides of the ball from start to finish. The Atlantic division crown is ours for the taking. Now let's go out and make it happen!

I was at the game - beautiful little stadium - too "cold" for the locals, apparently. There were many empty seats at gametime - and half of the fans who did show up LEFT AT HALFTIME. This game had all the drama of a BC-Wake Forest game (even though boring at times, the last 4 minutes provided great college football - witnessed by about 15,000 fans - unreal).

BC never quit, even when it looked like Davis might not have been up to the task (The defense pitched a shutout; offense (fumbles) and special teams gave Wake 21 points). I'm very proud of our players, our coaches, and Dominique Davis, who pulled it off under very difficult circumstances. This was Wake's first loss at home in 2 years, and they almost never lose at home under Coach Grobe. We will miss Chris Crane - and I wish him all the best. He was guiding us to a 30 - 0 win, but suffered that tough injury. BC has certainly had it's share of serious injuries to starters this year - let's not forget how these players lay it on the line for BC and Boston.

Good luck BC and Davis - beat Maryland and send us to Tampa (how many of us saw such a lopsided FSU victory?) P.S. Let's root for Virginia over Virginia Tech next Saturday so a victorious BC would play Georgia Tech in Tampa rather than Virginia Tech. I'm not afraid of Virginia Tech and respect them, etc, and we may match up better with them - would just like to see Georgia Tech in there - what a story this year.

Herzy looked immense at times, but by his own testimony, it was he himself who missed an assignment allowing the punt to be blocked. In other words - it's always about the team - We never quit - never.

I'll reserve my comments about Davis (whose fumbles were right in front of me) because he hung in there and got the job done. Congratulations to him.

I was watching the game last night with a few buddies of mine and when Crane was injured, they literally cheered that Davis was going in. I explained to them that even through Crane has had a very up and down season, I would much rather prefer Crane behind center then Davis. I mean Crane has lead us back into the contention for the Altantic title and has been improving all season. Why would you want to throw a kid in this huge spot who hasn't played since Rhode Island?

It was painfully obvious why the coaching staff stuck to their guns with Crane. While Davis might be good someday, he simply doesn't have the presence to throw the ball. He was very hesitant and held on the ball WAY too long in some cases. Here hoping that an easy, conservative game plan next week helps Davis out.

And @ mmason..."He's going to be decent in the pros some day, I'll bet." I really hope that was a joke but for some reason I think your serious. There is a 0% chance he gets drafted and I sincerely doubt someone would sign him as a undrafted free agent. His career is not in football.

1. Credit the coaching staff for ignoring the fans, alumni, media, and possibly any locker room unrest by sticking with Crane through 11 starts. He is clearly the best option on the roster and it is disappointing to see his college career end with an injury.

2. Davis will not look as bad next week. When he came in earlier in the season, he looked OK (as good as Crane) because the package he was sent in with was customized to his skill sets and he had practiced it. The past few weeks, he has been held out of games, and this probably affected his mental preparation, as well as the fact he probably hasn't taken regular reps since September. His lack of speed is more discouraging than the fumbles.

4. The defense... seriously, wow. The ACC has taken a few lumps in the media this season, but have you seen how comically bad the Big 12 is at defense? BC would probably be 8-3 out there as well, and Crane would have most likely looked like a passer. Tech, Wake, FSU, Clemson... all very good defensive teams.

5. We now only go as far as our offensive line can carry us. They will have to play out of their minds to keep the running game open and make this very easy for Davis.

Re Chris Crane - he really has gotten a lot better at managing the game. He was on his way to guiding us to a 30 - 0 win, but we all know the result.

There was a quiet, collective feeling of dread at the time of his injury. Davis quickly showed us why - he was not major college material when he first came into the game, and looked like a deer in the headlights. To the young man's credit, he hung in there - and so did the team which never quit, to pull off the victory we would not have done in years past.

Go BC - Beat Maryland.

P.S. Quinton Porter is doing well in Canada last I heard, and Brian St. Pierre is on an NFL roster, right. Sometimes these guys fake you out. Crane won't be drafted, of course, but may get a tryout, and who knows? I wish him the best. He has a lot of guts. I actually think he was hurt before the play that put him out, yet he rolled out for 13 yards before getting blasted. All these guys lay it on the line for us.

Game time is set for 3:30... There are A LOT of available tickets online both from BC and other fans. If you are not planning on going, make sure someone uses your seats! We at least owe it to the guys to support them in a huge game.

i am extremely happy we were able to pull out the victory last night. crane was looking pretty good until the injury. i never thought id say it, but it is too bad he is out for the remainder of the season. davis came in, and as everyone else has said, looked severely unprepared. it appeared he did not want to play. with that being said, we were still able to open up a decent sized lead until two fumbles were returned for a touchdown and a blocked punt resulted in one yard touchdown by riley skinner.

the defense has played outstanding all year. you gotta feel for these guys-- without turnovers leading to touchdowns, this d would be considered the best in the country. that is saying something, considering we have lost our best DE in albright and our stud linebacker in toal, as well as graduating all-american jamie silva, drafted dejuan tribble, and captain jolonn dunbar. our secondary, considered the achilles heel of the team entering the season, has played very well all year. if we would just limit the turnovers-for-points... if, if, if...

yea i'm fairly sure that Davis is not the quarterback in waiting. i think tuggle (is that is name?) is the future so we can obviously now see why davis wasn't playing all year. however, i think he is supposed to be an athlete so maybe he just didn't have the chance to show off his speed. my buddy really hit it right on the head when he said that once he completed a pass he looked much better. i think we can beat maryland with even sub-par qb play.

With a week to prepare, I hope Logan relies heavily on Harris/Haden and sprinkles in some option with Davis and a few play-action passes over the top. One would expect Davis to not randomly fumble again like yesterday, that was likely nerves.

According to the latest Sagarin rankings, the ACC is now the NUMBER ONE CONFERENCE. Let's see how the critics refute that. I guess to be an elite conference, you have to have 2 teams, who play no defense, beat up on a bunch of DIAA eqivalents.

I re-watched the game on ESPN Classic this morning and it gave me a different perspective.

First, we need to give the coaching staff credit for their patience and for sticking with Davis. Long-time BC fans have been so frustrated by getting teased with the BCS year after year only to be relegated to Boise or Frisco, that we are impatient for BC to get to the next level. We don't think clearly and I include myself in that statement. Some were calling to pull Tuggle's redshirt and I was pining for Codi Boek. But the BC coaches, who are not alumni and don't carry the baggage of frustration that we do, stood behind Davis and it payed off in the end.

Second, we need to understand that was Davis' first foray into big-time college football. He came in cold off the bench and probably has not been getting reps in practice. I think with a week of practice with the first unit, he will perform much better against Maryland. There are not many seniors that can engineer a game-winning drive like he did yesterday. To paraphrase the late, great Tim Russert, it's all about Maryland, Maryland, Maryland.

Third, the turnover that opened the second half was not Davis' fault. The corner bitzed at the last second and Haden went out on a pass route and blew right by the blitzer without even chipping him.

Fourth, Roderick Rollins had a monster game at cornerback. The guy has developed into a crushing hitter.

Finally, look how good our defense is. They shut down both Florida State and Wake on the road. This is the same Florida State team that lit-up Maryland for 37 points. Defense wins championships.

I'm keeping expectations very low as I have been a BC fan for 25 years and, aside from 1984, BC has been unable to make it to the BCS level. The liklihood of BC winning 2 more games with a young QB is not good, but BC under Jags seems to always come up with a surprise.

Great win. Hope the last drive gives Davis a big boost because he looked SCARED out there, even before the TD sneak.

By the way...snoozefest? Yes, the offense was painful at times, but BC mounted a last-minute touchdown drive to win a very meaningful game-- just when it appeared we were going to lose. I question the Eagle fanhood of anybody who thinks that was a "snoozefest."

To clarify, when I called the game a snoozefest, I was referring to the interlude between Wake's second fumble return TD and the beginning of Wake's last drive. I was not referring to the whole game. Outside of the blocked punt, how many big plays were there in that stretch of play? How many by either offense? The first half was fun to watch and the last two drives were nail-biters. But no matter what you say about the strength of the two defenses, neither offense played well last night, making the second half a bit of a defensive stall-fest.

It's one thing to criticize Davis during the game for his bad play before the final drive, but pining for Tuggle or Boek was never realistic on anyone's part. We're riding with Davis the rest of the way.

I was at the game with the band and just wanted to note that Wake blasts rock music over the speakers on third down. I know someone mentioned BC micing the band or crowd noice during key plays and thought this was of interest.

Concur with BCNorCal on the "snoozefest". The 2nd half (except for the blocked punt) featured Wake Forest playing field position, literally offense by punting, and BC looked so bad on offense that it was painful to watch. The D played well all game, but the 2nd half did not have the big plays like Herzy's first pic. I was literally able to talk on the phone for first half of the fourth quarter and miss nothing.

Now, that being said, the last 2 minutes, like so many BC games (ACC games really) were absolutely thrilling and I agree with our gracious Administrator here that BC fans must have a shorter life expectancy.

It will be interesting to see the grades and re-watch comments. I predict praise for Jags, well-deserved criticism of Davis, and praise for both Spaz and Logan, especially Logan as he did not get too loose with the play calling too early and risk a huge turnover that would have ended it sooner. He called it conservative and then, when he had to make some moves, he did. Special teams, Herzy missing a block assignment on punt, you gotta be kidding me!

Remember all the complaining about the coaching staff after the Clemson game? I think this game made a couple things clear. One is that Davis presumably has been practicing as terribly as we've heard. I will give him credit, though, because he looked like he got a lot of confidence from the pass to Gunnell...maybe he can be serviceable. The second thing is that Jags and the staff have done a terrific job all season. This is not a position that we expected to be in going into the last game of the season, and I'm going to take a day or two to appreciate what this team's accomplished before I start worrying about how we're going to score against Maryland.

While waiting for atleagle's grades and comments upon his 2nd viewing - here's an observation of mine.

While we all recognize the defense for sure, this offensive line is coming around - those guys never quit yesterday. I see us being O-line U for several years to come. Only Clif Ramsey is graduating, and we have some very good players coming up.

Recently I read Dr. Z's All Pro Notebook in SI, and was not surprised to read that he likes at Tackle - Marc Columbo (Cowboys); and at Guard Pete Kendall(Redskins) and Chris Snee (Giants. Tom Nalen was always the Center for many years.

I think we'll get some other BC offensive guys on that list in years to come, as well as some defensive players.

Deacon Drake--I sincerely hope you are joking that BC would be 8-3 in the Big 12. They would get slaughtered out there. The reason why many of the teams' defenses give up a lot of points is because the offenses are ridiculously good. Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Missouri, even Kansas all have good offenses. BC's defense would look much worse playing in the Big 12 just because the Big 12 offenses are significantly better than the pathetic ACC offenses. If any of the Big 12 teams played in the ACC, they might give up 10 points a game considering the large dropoff in talent.

Great observations by eagleboston: a fair treatment of Davis in hindsight can't be stressed enough.

He was mostly ineffective, but at the end of the day, he was operating with low to non-existing expectations considering he's a redshirt fresh., saw his first real action since URI, and probably wasn't mentally prepared to even take a snap on Sat.

Regardless as to whether WR's bailed him out on the last drive, the fact those two early fumbles didn't completely kill his effectiveness down the stretch speaks volumes about his heart (and potential for the Maryland game).

At the end of the day, all that matters is the W. Let's keep Maryland clearly in our sights before we even give thought to what may lay beyond.

Bravesbill... "(B12) defenses give up a lot of points is because the offenses are ridiculously good"...haven' t you been paying attention ?... our BC defense is "ridiculously good". I'm with Deacon Drake, we would be competitive anywhere with these guys...ENJOY !

Spacey--BC's defense is good yes. However, look at the offenses they have played against. Pathetic. The ACC as a whole has the worst offenses (along with the Big East) among BCS conferences. If you think BC can limit Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, etc. under 20 points a game, you're kidding yourself.

You may be the worst fan in history, we have at least 3 NFL stars on this defense (Raji, Herz, Brace) and a young secondary that leads the nation in interceptions. Chalking it up to bad offenses is pretty pathetic.

Matt--When did I ever say that BC's defense was not good you mental midget? All I said was that you could not compare it to any Big 12 defenses like Demon did because the Big 12 offenses are infinitely better than the BC defense. And if you honestly think ACC offenses are just as good as the Big 12 offense, you are kidding yourself. Go take a reading lesson buddy.